I was set to skip these for the week. I’m pretty busy, was out of town all weekend, and want to write some other things, but in the end I felt I owed it to Doosan for its fantastic sweep over the champs to vault into second place.

As of now the standings look very similar to the way they ended last year. There’s still no doubt that SK is the best team in the league, and I’m not as certain Doosan is the second best. But regardless, should SK and Doosan meet in the post-season this year people will remember way back in May when the Bears swept the Wyvrens in Inchon.

Without anything further here’s a brief look at this week’s KBO rankings:

1. SK Wyverns (1)– Still have a .683 winning percentage going into tonight’s series opener with Woori, but like I said in the introduction, getting swept by Doosan will linger even into the post-season.

2. Doosan Bears (4) – It’s against my usual slow and steady rankings policy, but there’s no possible way to stick with Lotte or Hanwha in the No. 2. spot. As impressive as anything was the fact that only one of the wins vs. SK was all that close. Doosan will take on Hanwha (lost Game 1 tonight) to start the week, then head to Jeju to play the Jeju Heroes.

3. Hanwha Eagles (3) – Not a great week by any means, but not as bad as Lotte. Doug Clark (13) maintained his lead in the KBO Hanwha Eagles HR race, but just barely as Kim Tae-kyun hit his 11th and 12th round-trippers. Beat Doosan tonight to take Game 1 of that series.

4. Lotte Giants (2)– Lost 2 of 3 to Samsung, then 2 of 3 to Woori. With tonight’s loss to Kia, the Giants are now a .500 team for the first time this season. Karim Garcia seems to have been solved, was given tonight off, and is hitting .195/.255/.391 over the last 30 days. After the Kia series the Giants will come back to Busan and take on SK.

5. Samsung Lions (5)– Looking like a better team that Lotte at this point, but this team never quite cuts loose in the way I expect it to. Fell behind LG this week in team BA, and were held to three hits (losing 1-0) tonight by the Twins Jung Chan-hun.

6. Kia Tigers (6)– Kept it going against Hanwha, but then were crushed by LG over the weekend. Beat Lotte tonight and will take on LG this weekend. No word on when Choi Hee-seop will be back in the lineup.

7. Woori Heroes (7)– Ma Il-yeong, Jang Won-sam and Wang Doo-sung all sport ERAs under 3.00, but are a combined 8-8 on the year. Ma impresses me the most. He took out Lotte on Sunday, holding the Gaints to four hits over eight innings in a no decision.

8. LG Twins (8)– Were .500 for the week and won tonight. Maybe Roberto Petagine. Did you know Petagine is married to one of his childhood friend’s mother? She’s 25 years older than he. Have to wonder how that went down.